Mg substitution effect on the electron affinity of ZnO films

Abstract

We investigated the effect of Mg doping on the electron affinity of ZnO thin films. MgxZn1−xO (x = 0–0.29) composition-gradient films were deposited on an α-Al2O3(001) substrate using combinatorial pulsed laser deposition. The combinatorial high-throughput analysis of the optical transmittance systematically revealed that the bandgap of ZnO films was tunable between 3.3 and 4.0 eV by doping the ZnO thin films with Mg2+ ions. To investigate the electronic structure, photoelectron yield spectroscopy measurements were performed on the MgxZn1−xO composition-gradient films. The ionization potential, which denotes the distance between the valence band maximum and vacuum level, was independent of the Mg content in the ZnO films. By comparing with the optical bandgap results, the electron affinity was tunable from 4.1 to 3.5 eV by the Mg content in the MgxZn1−xO films.